Welcome back to the show.
Last week, Republican Senate leaders
were apparently afraid that we'd scrutinize Trump's
cabinet picks too closely.
Ha ha, no chance of that.
But before being saved by a pee-us ex machina,
they'd already taken steps to create distractions.
Confirmation hearings are beginning tomorrow
for a parade of Trump cabinet nominees, nine in
all this week.
That is a big number.
No shit.
It's like when the dodgeball team
throws all the balls at once you can't respond to any of them.
You know what?
Fuck it.
Just throw me one.
Ooh!
Well, hello, handsome.
Who are you?
REPORTER: Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general.
REPORTER: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.
No, that is not the name of a cartoon rooster
from a banned Disney movie.
The far-right senator and next smallest guy in the Orrin Hatch
nesting doll set who was one of Trump's first endorsers,
way back when we thought Trump had
no chance because he was only attracting
kooks like Jeff Sessions.
And yes, that's Jefferson, as in Confederate President
Jefferson Davis, Beauregard, as in Confederate general Pierre
Beauregard, and III, as in the finger
you show Yankees who come down here telling us what to do.
[LAUGHTER]
In case that name was too subtle,
Jeff's parents also drew a Confederate flag in sausage
gravy on his birth certificate.
[LAUGHTER]
So I want to salute Jeff Sessions
for breaking family tradition and naming his son Sam.
I think in Alabama, that counts as reparations.
Obviously, Jeff Sessions can't help what his parents named him
the day he bravely seceded southward from his mother's
Mason-Dixon line.
So let's be grownups and focus on his record.
[CLEARS THROAT]
Jefferson Beauregard Confederacy Scarlett O'Hara Cotton Gin
Session III was born December 1946 in Selma, Alabama,
making him the second most racially divisive thing
to ever come out of that town.
Jeff Sessions, it should be noted,
he was blocked after Ronald Reagan nominated him
to a federal judgeship because of very controversial
statements he made on race.
And that was in 1986, when America had no problem with
Asian characters named Long Duk Dong and wacky,
anti-affirmative action comedies about blackface.
What's happening, brother?
Get down, get down.
Lookin' good.
Feelin' good, my soul brother!
Being too racially insensitive for 1986
is like being too into piss play for R. Kelly.
That joke was in the script before yesterday,
thank you very much.
[LAUGHTER]
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
Yeah.
Now, Sessions strongly denied the allegations.
Watch the woman behind him.
I am not a racist.
I am not insensitive to blacks.
I've supported civil rights activity in my state.
[LAUGHTER]
The chair recognizes the gentle lady
from the Ain't Having It caucus.
The senators weren't convinced either.
Mr. Sessions is a throwback to a shameful era,
which I know both black and white Americans
thought was in our past.
Actually, only the white Americans
thought it was in our past.
You should ask a black senator, except one won't be
elected for another six years.
There was only one thing for Jeff
to do-- get elected to the Senate
and convince every single senator
he's a good guy, which he did.
I know Senator Sessions well.
We work out in the gym occasionally together,
and he is a pleasant man.
REPORTER: Other Democrats Sessions got to know in the gym
agree.
We can kibitz in the gym.
We're on the bikes next to each other oftentimes.
We've both showered.
We're putting our clothes on, about to leave.
I say, Jeff, give me a number.
(SLOWLY) OK.
Damn, Sessions spends a lot of time at the gym.
No wonder he's had the strength to hold back
immigration reform for so long.
The entire Senate seems to love Jeff
with a passion they usually reserve for hating Ted Cruz.
[LAUGHTER]
Ted also defended Jeff's record as Alabama attorney general.
In 1981, in Mobile, Alabama, the Ku
Klux Klan ordered the murder of a random African-American man.
Not only did you assist in the prosecution,
you also prosecuted Hayes's father, who ordered his son
to kill an African-American.
(FLABBERGASTED) What?
He prosecuted a lynching instead of breaking
the murderers out of jail and (SOUTHERN
ACCENT) buying them a moon pie?
Give that man an NAACP Award.
My god, how low is our bar if we expect people to list
"prosecutes white people for crimes
too" in the Special Skills section of their resume?
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
Not-- not that being enemy of the KKK is a bad thing.
I mean, you wouldn't want those assholes on your side.
DAVID DUKE: The most important appointees-- Bannon, Michael
Flynn, and Sessions as Attorney General-- I believe,
are the first steps in taking America back.
Jeff should be flattered.
David Duke is really selective about who he likes.
I personally do not believe Jeff Sessions hates black people,
and I don't really care about something he said 30 years ago.
He's a 70-year-old white guy from Alabama.
There's a good chance he's dropped an N-bomb or two
in his life, and that's not even counting when he sings along
to his favorite Outkast album.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm more troubled with what he said yesterday.
You said in a radio interview, justice has to be saved from
secular-progressive liberals.
And a secular person has just as good
a claim to understanding the truth as a person
who is religious, correct?
Well, I'm not sure.
Cheese and crackers, Jeff!
How do you flub the question on, can non-religious people think?
You sound a lot like a guy with a history of overlooking
black voter suppression while requesting the feds'
help in stopping civil rights violations
against Christian voters.
I think we've all seen the heartbreaking images
of Christian voters being forced to take
poll tests where they have to guess
the number of dildos in a jar.
[LAUGHTER]
Speaking of civil rights, what is the next head of the DOJ
say about police abuses?
But in the last several years, law enforcement as a whole
has been unfairly maligned and blamed
for the unacceptable actions of a few of their bad actors.
No.
It was maligned for institutional bias
that results in the deaths of unarmed black men.
"Independence Day Resurgence" was maligned for the actions
of a few bad actors.
[LAUGHTER]
OK.
So much for BLM.
What about LGBT?
In 2010, you stated, expanding hate crime protections
to LGBT individuals was unwarranted, possibly
unconstitutional.
Do you still feel that way?
Mr. Chairman, the law has been passed.
The Congress has spoken.
You can be sure I will enforce it.
Mm, nothing like the warm embrace
of minimal grudging tolerance.
Hey, do you live in one of the 28 states with legal weed?
Well, flush that shit.
Here comes the 5-0.
Marijuana is not the kind of thing
that ought to be legalized.
This drug is dangerous.
Good people don't smoke marijuana.
That's right. Good people eat marijuana.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
Look.
I don't envy the guy whose first task
will be convincing his boss not to seek the death
penalty against BuzzFeed.
It's the hardest part of the job,
as Jeff reminded us when he voted against Loretta
Lynch's confirmation.
The top official in our government
is required to adhere to the law,
even to the point of telling the president no if he gets it
in his head, as presidents sometimes do,
to do something that violates the law.
Don't worry, Jeff.
He's good at taking no for an answer.
Ask any woman.
We'll be right back.
[THEME MUSIC]